Rapid hitching and unhitching of towable vehicles from towing vehicles with maximum convenience (i.e., minimal labor) has become more and more critical as towable vehicles have proliferated and the operators/proprietors of businesses dealing with towable vehicles for rent or sale have recognized that attractive aligned display of towable vehicles has a salutary effect in attracting customers. Rapid hitching and unhitching with maximum convenience also is important for businesses having a multitude of different towable implements and for operators who have every desire to avoid getting in and out of the cab of a towing vehicle to secure and release each hitch connection. In short, rapid hitching and unhitching operations are much sought after by a multitude of resort owners, boat dealers, inland marina operators, camper dealers, dealers in anhydrous tanks, agricultural implements, trailer rentals for household goods, as well as for trailer rentals for motor cycles, snowmobiles, racing cars, etc. Further, rapid remotely controlled hitching and unhitching is important where augers or other other towable equipment items are to be shifted to different locations in handling fungible and other goods.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,604,752 issued Aug. 12, 2003 to inventors Ronald F. and Steven M. Gerres does provide one solution for accomplishing rapid hitching and unhitching of a towable vehicle and a towing vehicle while an operator remains in the cab of the towing vehicle; but the solution in that patent concentrates on hitch connections where a pin extends through a hole in the draw bar of the towing vehicle and a hole in the tongue of a towable vehicle. That approach is not useful where a ball hitch arrangement is on the towing vehicle and an inverted cup-shaped socket hitch arrangement is on the towable vehicle.
Over 30 years ago a cab-controlled ball and socket hitching connection was patented by Deere & Company of Moline, Ill.; see George Dwight Hunter U.S. Pat. No. 3,826,517 of Jul. 30, 1974. That patent uses a pick-up bale in the form of a flexible chain suspended from draft links of a tractor and a pick-up hook on the upper surface of a ball engagement inverted socket on the tongue of a towable implement. The chain on the tractor is wiggled under the hook on the implement to align the socket of the implement over the ball hitch on the draw bar of a tractor—a result that can be difficult and even clumsy to accomplish. Then a hydraulically controlled keeper is moved horizontally to hold the socket on the ball hitch. A similar Deere & Company 1974 patent has a pivotable keeper; see John William Ackley U.S. Pat. No. 3,827,724 of Aug. 6, 1974. The design of the ball hitch as well as the inverted socket of the tongue must be standardized in order for the specially contoured keepers of these two patents to maintain the socket in an engaged condition on the ball hitch. The teaching of these 1974 patents has not received a great deal of attention in the practical world, possibly because the only place they really become practical is where the implement and the tractor are always equipped with components of uniform design in order to achieve reliable hitching. Unfortunately, ball and socket hitching components are not routinely of the same matching size and style of design. Different manufacturers vary the size and shape of ball and socket components. The variations have militated against dreams of universal ball and socket cab-controlled hitching and unhitching, and have frustrated operators into the practice of departing from the cab of a towing vehicle to attend to tightening each special cup-shaped socket into a gripping relationship on a suitable previously selected ball on the towing vehicle.
In short, a convenient and universally operable and reliable technique for easily accomplishing engagement and disengagement of a variety of sizes and shapes of inverted cup-shaped sockets on a ball hitch by an operator of a towing vehicle without dismounting from the cab of the towing vehicle has been much desired, but never heretofore accomplished despite the extraordinary popularity of ball and inverted socket hitching. This invention directs itself to a solution to the problem and presents the art with a convenient and universally operable and reliable technique for engagement and disengagement of inverted sockets of varied sizes and shapes on a basic ball hitch without need for an operator to dismount from the cab of a towing vehicle to accomplish the engagement and disengagement of the components.